Friday, 21 February 2014

Review - What Makes This Book So Great by Jo Walton

The easier way to describe this is as a book of book reviews, but it's much more than that. Jo Walton' s love of sci-fi and fantasy was clear in her award-winning novel Among Others, and this book expands on the brief discussions of those authors and stories. Walton's excitement for the genre and for books in general leaps of the pages as she works her way through topics ranging from different uses of time travel and genre, to old classics and Walton' s own guilty sci-fi pleasures.

Works by Ursula K Le Guin and Salmon Rushdie are talked about alongside lesser known authors, and with more than 130 reviews of varying lengths the book is perfect for dipping into in a spare 10 minutes. If you need a recommendation to help choose another book to read, Walton is never short on suggestions, and she is careful to warn readers about spoilers when she talks about plots.

The book is compiled of a selection of the hundreds of blog posts made by Walton on Tor.com over the past five years, meaning the entries are easily digested while still being entertaining and packing ideas, thoughts, praise and questions into each short piece.